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This was a terrific opportunity to work with a filmmaker friend of mine, Ed Nachtreib on a touching and fascinating story about Charles McCandless, a World war II veteran with an amazing story of honor, survival and family. We wrapped the film just as the notorious 2020 was getting rolling and had to delay various screenings that were planned. It has found its way into festivals anyway. McCandless’s trek through the Pacific Theater of the War is truly unique, and it offered a wide variety of scoring opportunities.

A Galaxy Far Far Away

Composer

Director/producer Tariq Jalil made this guerilla-style documentary about the _Star Wars_ fan campout phenomenon before the opening of _Episode 1- The Phantom Menace._ The score is mostly fillers and transitions, but there are some nice emotional moments to play when the film turns its attention to stories specific to certain fans, many of whom draw their feelings of belonging and self-worth from being members of the _Star Wars_ extreme fan community. Tariq found some extraordinary people among the larger throngs of fan and trend followers. The mad rushes on toy stores are a bit frightening, too

A Mermaid For Christmas

Composer

This delightful little family rom/com was directed by Michael Caruso and stars, among others, my friends Kyle Lowder and Nadia Bjorlin. They are pals of mine from my Days of Our Lives days.

It’s a terrific new telling of the Mermaid legend and has some very funny performances in it. Loved getting to do a tuneful, traditional score for this one. (Lots of “purty” horn solos)

Alien Lockdown

Composer

This was my first feature-length film with director Tim Cox. With very limited financial resources he created an amazing-looking film that consisted of all blacks and greens and shadows. It definitely gives a nod to the great _Alien_ films with its claustrophobic setting and evil-looking creatures zipping around. This was one of the first projects I worked on that had a heavy action component. I had primarily been a nice theme family story kind of guy until I started working with Tim. I don’t know what happened! This score aspired to have a giant orchestra but economics precluded that. So, with this film I plunged to the next levels of technology and added three new computers and Giga studios to my rig (a big deal for me at the time) and became forever entwined with the world of samplers and digital audio

Attack of the Gryphon

Composer

This is yet another sci-fi “epic” with big aspirations. It has big vistas, huge CGI armies, and loads of guys in armor on horseback. Throw in an evil wizard and some leather-clad witches, and the scoring opportunities and requirements are plentiful! I took a pretty traditional orchestral approach on this one with very little time to write, as is often the case.

Black Hole

Composer

Did I mention I’ve scored a LOT of horror/sci-fi? This film required a more contemporary approach to the score than many of these have and was less horror-oriented and more geared towards the “sci” end of sci-fi. I really enjoyed working with the director, Tibor Takacs, on this film. We spent a great deal of time together going and spotting process, and that led to a more collaborative feel than is sometimes possible with TV movie schedules. The “villain” in the film has a very distinctly electronic sonic presence, so the score was designed to support the “tech feel” of the film without interfering with the “tech sound” of the film. I knew my sound mixer friends would appreciate that!

Burn Notice

Composer

Most composers who come to Hollywood and hope to thrive in the film and TV industry look forward to those projects that are artistically rewarding, successful, and visible in their own right. They look for growth experiences both musically and professionally. Burn Notice was all of those things for me. I’ve been working with Burn Notice creator, Matt Nix, since our first short film, First Prince, together in 1999. Burn Notice was our first television collaboration and proved to be a real winner. The music needs of the show can varied widely each week from techno-flavored chases, to Latin bumpers, to light hearted ”gadget” cues, metal action, to full-on orchestral action moments that combine a little of everything. The characters were vibrant and fun to write for. (what a cast!) I composed over 4000 cues for the show during its run, and it was hard to choose what to play here! So, here’s a sampling of some of the different vibes on the show.

Cool World

Composer

This was my first exposure as a composer to a studio-backed film. I was at an Irish Pub in Toluca Lake when I met a woman who roomed with the film’s unofficial music consultant. She and I got to talking about this edgy new animated film that Ralph Bakshi was working on. She put me in touch with the right people, and I submitted a short demo (on cassette!) of some of my wackiest material, most of it written the night before I submitted it. Thus began the zany process of landing a very small piece of the score for this film. Ralph said he wanted “Carl Stallings with industrial rock orchestration.” I said, “Sure, I’ve got that.” Who has that?!

As a fresh-off-the-turnip-truck newcomer to L.A., getting this job was both an exciting and intimidating turn of events. I wrote my cues with my tiny synth rig, a Roland MC 500 sequencer (no Mac), a stopwatch, and a large stack of computations and formulas for achieving the hit points. I think the music editors thought that was quaint. I never even got final mixes of my cues! It was a great welcome to Los Angeles for me, regardless of how odd the whole experience was.

The moral of the story — be nice to folks you meet in pubs. You never know with whom you might be talking!

Crossroads

Composer

I consider this my first “real” writing job in L.A. An orchestrator colleague of mine, who at the time knew me primarily as a player, introduced me to composer Snuffy Walden. I was a big _Wonder Years_ fan and was excited to work with him. _Crossroads_ was the first of a number of projects I worked on with Snuffy, initially as an arranger/orchestrator/performer and later as a composer. It had a wonderful rural feel to it and a lot of good “traveling music” moments. It was a tremendous learning opportunity and a chance for me to observe a top composer at work on a network show with its tight time frames, high standards, and so on. One of the most valuable things I learned from the experience was the importance of really absorbing the intent and shape of the dialog in quiet scenes. Music is so often blanketed under or over these scenes, but when handled sensitively, the simplest cues can be the most profound.

Darklight

Composer

This was a passion project for its director, Bill Platt. I worked closely with him to craft a score that thematically supported the gravity of the history of his main character, Lilith. Bill referred to her as the first Jewish superhero. I added some female vocalists to the orchestra: one for the light human side of Lilith and one for her demonic alter ego. In the latter portions of the film they mesh and sing themes together in counterpoint.

Killer Per Caso

Composer

I did this film for Italian TV star, Ezio Greggio. The film’s DP knew me from a short-film I had scored and put me in touch with the team on this one. The cast in this movie is peppered with several friends of Mel Brooks (Dom DeLuise, Rudy De Luca, etal), and has a lot of harmless, broad comedy.

It was fun to work on this project because it’s utterly silly and good-hearted. More importantly, it had a nice budget that allowed me to work with some terrific string, wind, and rhythm players.

To this day, Killer Per Caso floats out in cable-ville and plays in parts of Europe.

Larva

Composer

This was the third film I worked on with director Tim Cox, and ’70s TV was our primary inspiration for this project. We went for a more retro vibe. You’ve got to admit there was great music on TV in the ’70s. I used a lot of subtle string textures, very definite thematic motifs, vibraphone and lithophone, waterphone, telephone (I actually played a role as an actor…on the phone!) as well as ponderous mid and low brass to lend a bit of a nostalgic feel to the score. Then when the action really gets going, “subtle” goes out the window. David Selby was in the cast, which was a highlight for me. He was Quentin Collins in _Dark Shadows_. You don’t get more cool-TV-horror-nostalgic than that!

Lost Colony

Composer

This was my second collaboration with producer Mark Lester and my first with director Matt Codd. I liked the 1580’s setting and the Native American presence in the story. Both led to some interesting orchestrational requirements that are out of the norm for sci-fi fare. I had also just made some major hardware and library upgrades and was ready to dig into all the new sonic possibilities that always brings. This is the most recent of the sci-fi projects I’ve written for (2007). I’ve done a LOT of them, many of which are not covered on my site. I love sci-fi because even the smaller films often aspire to “largeness” both in their subject matter and in their visual style. Many of my favorite scores and indeed the best scores of all time were written for this genre. It can allow the composer to really stretch himself and try new things…other than just _boom boom boom shriek bang!_

Mammoth

Composer

_Mammoth_ represents my fourth film collaboration with director Tim Cox. It was easily the zaniest and the most fun. It walks (or stomps on) the line between a light spoofy romp and a “hold on to the edge of your seat” horror film. Tim asked for every vibe from ’60s surfer rock to ’50s mega-string lushness to Henry Mancini’s hip jazz to retro-inspired orchestral action. Naturally I said no, but he insisted! I pulled in some of my favorite wind and brass players to punch up certain moments in the score, including a cue that I love which has four unison bass flutes featured as soloists (“Frank Meets the Agents”). Thank you, Mr. Mancini. There are family moments to offer a break from the action and to let the actors breathe, and some real hefty action sequences. Tim, in addition to being a terrific filmmaker, is also a big-time film music scholar and fan. It’s great to work with a director who has such appreciation for the history of film music.

Miss Nobody

Composer

This was another opportunity to work with my old pal Tim Cox on a fun dark comedy. We had a terrific cast and a fun script and enough resources for me to bring in some of my favorite musicians to work with on recording the score. If you haven’t seen this one, go find it. It’s a hoot.

Ondine

I have done a fair amount of theater work over the years but very little of it in Los Angeles. Some years ago, though, I was given the opportunity to work with director Manfred F. Kuhnert on his wonderful production of Ondine at the Powerhouse Theater in Santa Monica, and I’m so glad I did it. It was truly a fine production with a brilliant cast, beautiful set design, and a deep emotional core.

Ondine is the fabled story of a little mermaid-like creature (an ondine) who gives up her entire world, the sea, for the love of a knight named Hans. But Hans cannot be faithful, and he fails her. Their love ends in despair. This legend has been reworked many times including in Ron Howard’s great comedy, Splash. The musical requirements for this production were broad: Play the watery magic of the sea kingdom, the doomed romance with the human, Hans, and, thanks to Manfred’s vision, play the sisters of Ondine as Dreamgirls! A Los Angeles Times reviewer stated his pleasant surprise that the inclusion of glam-girl songs fit right in with the play. That was Manfred’s hope, and it was one of my most enjoyable theater experiences.

The following cue is the “Bows” of the show. I’m hunting down a good copy of the glam-girls number. The singers did a great job on it!

Pterodactyl

Composer

This was my first film for _Commando_ director Mark Lester. It’s filled with long action scenes and, well, pterodactyls. The film is a large-scale, multi-character, action/horror movie, so the score reflects that. I put together a huge orchestral palette with a fair amount of live brass and lots of percussion, and bashed away for over 80 minutes with a turnaround of about nine days. The writing style is often indicative of more traditional European schools of early 20th century composition, the composers whose works I devoured in school. I don’t always get to write like I did for this piece, especially for television.

I’ve done loads of short films: great, good, bad, and indifferent. Atom films has some of them. Many others had good festival runs. I’ve met a number of very talented young filmmakers in the process.

Here is music from just a few of my favorites::

Paperlily: Wonderful Sony short film with Fionula Flannigan and Nina Siemaszko. Heartbreaking.
Man With No Eyes: Tim Cox’s sci-fi debut with Mel Stewart, Leon Rippy, and Vernon Wells. One Cool short film! Listen.
Rock Creek: This was a very earnest film by a new filmmaker. It’s family drama about revenge on the western frontier. It had some really nice moments to play
Singularity: One of my many short film collaborations with Matt Nix. They are all funny, all unique. This one had theramin though!
Propeller One Way Night Coach: Actually not a short film, it was a Warner book on tape. But it was written and narrated by John Travolta, and it’s a charming story and was a lot of fun to write for.
Sunny’s Deliverance: This was my first short film in L.A. It’s a UCLA Extension film directed by talented Irish director Declan Recks. Charming story.

The Fall of Sam Axe

Composer

This was a cool spin-off one-off from Burn Notice designed to showcase the inestimable Bruce Campbell in the title roll. It was a lot of fun to work on and provided a nice temporary detour from the week to week work on BN. Bruce is the man!

The Good Guys

Composer

This was a fun rock and roll spoof of a cop show. Bradley Whitford and Colin Hanks. What could go wrong?

The Stand

I was so jazzed to be able to work on this project. The book by Stephen King was one of my favorites as a kid, and I was excited that it was being produced as a miniseries.

Snuffy Walden, with whom I had already worked on several shows and TV features, called me in to help with arrangements and orchestrations for the show with only a few weeks to go in post. There was an enormous amount of score; some of it quietly thematic, some textural, some eerie, and some gothic horror. Hours of music! And we turned it around very quickly!

It was a great pleasure to work with Snuffy again and with some of the industry’s top rhythm players on what Stephen King referred to as “blue jeans music.” It was a perfect compliment to one of my favorite King movies.

The following is one my favorite of Snuffy’s themes from the mini-series.

Who Killed The Electric Car?

Composer

Producer Richard Titus brought me in to work on this documentary, primarily as a music editor, during the last days of post. While music editing is not something I normally do, I wanted to work on a project with the filmmakers, Dean Devlin and Chris Paine, and really liked the idea of this film and wanted to be a part of it. Happily, during the post-midnight editing sessions, the need arose for additional music cues to be written and I was asked to provide them…quickly! I enjoyed working again in the documentary format and learned a great deal about what, in fact, did happen to these hip cars.

XXX

Composer

I was brought on this film to assist composer Randy Edelman with putting together some of the larger action set pieces. It’s quite a thrill to write for a 90-plus-piece orchestra and a 25-person voice choir, a privilege we composers all aspire to. Randy wrote a terrific theme, and the movie provided some great opportunities to play big! The following cues have a large percussion pit, male chorus, and huge brass sections complete with twelve horns in the orchestra, and I think I saw one kitchen sink.